


Red Doc

by ZeroMonster



Category: DCU
Genre: Cell Phones, Event Leviathan - Freeform, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Texting, jaydick-flashfic: text messages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22519714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroMonster/pseuds/ZeroMonster
Summary: "What are you wearing?"Jason receives a text from Dick hinting at the superheroes’ theory that Jason is the newest supervillain: Leviathan.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 137





	Red Doc

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the mini series Event Leviathan but you don't have to read it to understand this.

There something inside you  
It's hard to explain  
They're talking about you boy  
But you're still the same  
-Nightcall / Kavinsky

Jason was too close to the edge. One inch forward and he would fall to the ground, hard. The wind had stopped for now, but the night still clung to its chillines, the dark sky had swallowed the stars but the lights of the city tried to make up for it. 

Stakeouts were not adrenaline inducing, but they appealed to the part of him that wanted to be in charge. Phones tapped, cameras installed and exists mapped Jason had climbed to a roof from where he had good view of the warehouse. If nothing happened soon, he would go on to patrol. 

A vibration in his pocket made him put his bat-binoculars down. He fished out his phone - his civilian phone - and arched an eyebrow behind his mask at the unknown number. The call went to voicemail; if this had been his work phone, it would've trailed the number and dug up information on its owner right down to their high school grades. As it were, he could identify the number was from the Gotham area and nothing more. 

Jason could count the people he'd given this number to in one hand. None of them would've called him tonight. And still, he'd carried the phone.

If he saved the number, he could look up the owner's photo on their online messaging profile. He started typing in the name box: who is this? - he raised his head and chewed his lip, his skin grazed the cold surface of the mouth mask. Who is this? It's cold. Saved. 

When he was a kid, Bruce had bought him his first cell phone. He'd said that he needed to know where Jason was at all times. Jason had left it in his room when he'd left for Etiopia. His contact list had been half full with names like: who is this? The park, or who is this? Apple pie. Things that would've made them easier to remember. 

The profile photo was all solid lapis blue. Underneath it was a name: Dickie. Jason frowned down at the phone and it vibrated again in his hand, this time with a text.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
**Today** 9:45 PM  
What are you wearing?  
  


Jason balked. 

who is this? It’s cold   
  
**Today** 9:45 PM  
What are you wearing?  
  
Wrong number asshole  
Why are you calling me from Dickie Wayne's phone?   
  


He didn't ask how Dick had gotten his number. He could imagine.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
I don't think so little wing  
I have a reason to ask  
And I don't give this number to socialites  
It's for friends, remember?  
  
Right. What's that reason?  
What happened to work phones?   
And remember what?   
  
Leviathan happened to work phones  
He's also the reason I have to ask again  
What are you wearing?  
Now please  
Say it's the RH get up with the actual hood and the muzzle  
  


Jason rolled his eyes. Then he read the texts again, critically. Dick was being too friendly; prior interactions indicated he was trying to butter Jason up. Jaw clenched with the implication as to why, Jason replied at the same time as Dick.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
You know it is  
Now fuck off  
  
This is the same number I gave you when you were Robin, remember?  
All right   
If you feel the need to change into a red robe and an even higher-tech-than-before helmet that's Superman proofed  
… don't  
  


Dick had a way of punching that made Jason’s head spin, it was so fast that only as an outsider with a trained eye you could identify two punches instead of one. It was typical of him to put on a show before. Acrobatics, to gain momentum. Then he hit you with an arched punch and a smile. That’s who he was, even if he didn’t mean it.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
**Today** 10:03 PM  
Jason?  
  
I don't remember that  
  


He disappeared the phone in his pocket and shoved away from the edge. He needed to move. He crossed from middletown island to uptown before he let himself think. He remembered the stupid contacts in his stupid old phone but couldn't remember Dick fucking Grayson giving him his number?

Fuck...fuck.

Jason remembered parts of his past, but something had carved at the whole thing, and sometimes he found only ghosts there. He looked down at Crime Alley and thought to himself, I promise I won't do anything awful. He wondered what Dick would've said to that before he lost himself to the city. 

He turned the phone off and took it apart. Dick didn't contact him through his comm, and that was a relief. There was nothing else to do then, than to find out why Dick thought he was out there dressed as the superhero's community newest nightmare. 

It made a certain amount of sense. 

The Batcomputer’s files were, of course, protected by an encryption so complex and beautiful that Jason could recognize not only Batman and Oracle’s code, but Nightwing and Red Robin’s as well. He itched to tore it down, but the smallest hostile activity from him now could only give them more reasons to come after him. 

Thankfully, Green Arrow made his notes on the case on his Macbook and his cyber security was considerably lower than that of the Bat. He even helpfully labeled the correct folder: Red.  
Jason began reading.

A person and organization named LEVIATHAN has done the impossible and simultaneously taken out mayor pillars of the intelligence community… the D.E.O, Spyral, A.R.G.U.S and many others are gone. Wiped from the earth…

Spyral.

Dick.

Jason’s unfair, residual anger at Dick for his own memory issues died out at the mere thought of him gone. Stupid, downright pointless, Dick had gotten out of the spy game long ago… except it hadn’t been that long ago. 

He kicked up the phone again, and turned it on. He had five lost calls from who is this? It's cold. No new texts. Disappointment got the jump on him. He laughed bitterly, then continued reading.

Superman survived a kidnapping that only revealed that Leviathan is no longer in control of the woman who funded it: Talia al Ghul... But it’s Robin, looking at all the evidence, who wonders if Leviathan is his predecessor: the Red Hood a.k.a Robin, a man whose special war on crime has been a point of controversy for years. 

There it was. Ties to Talia al Ghul, similar color scheme, controversial crime-fighting methods, and Robin’s deductions, which noticeably carried weight. It wasn’t surprising; Damian had, in his years as the boy wonder, interacted with the Justice League way more than Jason had in his entire career. 

All said and done, it should’ve been him. It was so obvious that it simply couldn’t be him. Someone was setting him up. He said so to Batman and Lois Lane that night when the vigilante and his little group of detectives snuck up on him and accused him of being an international terrorist. 

He wasn’t even mad that it’d happened, they could all try to fight him if they still thought it meant something. He didn’t know what would happen if they did, just that neither side would like it. 

Jason returned to his safehouse after having taken Batman off his back, to his phone’s notification light blinking. He hoped it wasn’t who he thought it was, one bat per night was enough, two were a terror. It was Dick, but in true Grayson sensibility, he didn’t mention their earlier conversation nor the five missed calls, yet he’d something interesting to show to Jason.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
**Today** 3:04 AM  
  
Heard you can take on two Leaguers and company without help   
  
Where did you get that?  
  
Screenshot from the video Lois Lane took while you kicked their asses  
  
I shoot the phone from her hand  
  
It was saved to B’s server  
  
You’re not mad?   
  
No, Jason   
That’s one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen  
  


Jason felt anyone could’ve heard his heart if they’d cared to listen, it was beating so loudly in his ears. He was glad, suddenly, of the screens and distance separating them, he would rather keep how much Dick was affecting him to himself. He took his time deciding how he wanted to answer, and Dick waited. He was lucky the video had stopped before he’d punched Batman in the face.

who is this? It’s cold   
  
**Today** 3:16 AM  
You got a competence kink, N?  
  
When it’s you?   
Yes   
  


Dick Grayson was driven by emotion, not his livido, so Jason wanted to ask: how long? but if Dick - like Jason - had spend countless nights out there pretending he could catch him and reach inside him to pull something from him, then how long didn’t matter any more. Still, he couldn’t resist typing-

who is this? It’s cold   
  
That’s new  
  
Not really  
All the times I’ve stared at you  
Were they lost on you?  
  


And text messages where enough until they weren’t anymore. If this was how Dick talked face to face, Jason was already doomed, there was no hope for him.

The moon was still high in the sky when Jason left his safehouse; he traveled by roof, over the grey brick of the oldest Gotham buildings, the lights on the street reflecting orange light on their walls, and from above it looked a little like they were on fire. But Dick’s temporary apartment was on the part of the city that was perpetually cast in neon lights, crisscrossed by high bridges. 

Dick’s blinds were closed, but between their gaps Jason could see his silhouette pacing in his living room. He’d left the phone at the safehouse, otherwise he might have texted him to stop panicking. Dick opened his window before Jason could knock on the glass, presumably due to proximity alerts. He looked surprised to see Jason. 

“Do you want to let me in?”

Dick retreated deep into the apartment so that Jason could slide in, he was still clutching the phone in his hand but moved to leave it on the coffee table when he noticed Jason staring at it, Jason followed his cue and left his grappling hook beside Dick’s phone, the only part of his equipment he’d took with him. Dick was equally in civvies: sweatpants and a light blue threadbare t-shirt. He was looking at Jason with an indecipherable look on his face. 

“Just to clarify,” Dick said. “How small is the possibility that you’d shoot me if I kiss you right now?”

“Small,” Jason answered. “I could put it in the palm of my hand and still have enough room for my dick.”

Dick laughed, one of his real laughs, almost quiet, like it had taken him by surprise. 

Jason felt like cracking with longing, like the earth under the sun, and when Dick put his hands on him and kissed him, Jason drank him like cool water. 

“Next time leave a voicemail,” he said against Dick’s lips and felt him smile.

That night the world almost ended, as it tended to do more nights than Jason cared to count, and they found out by Lois Lane’s story on the Daily Planet the next morning, in which she revealed the real identity of Leviathan. The world learned that Batman and Superman had saved them, given them one more chance. But what Jason remembered from that night was how Dick looked above him, how the shadows played over his face and how bright his eyes were when Jason touched him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Red Doc> by Anne Carson because I could't resist, which is were I got the quote: “You could take the entirety of the common sense of humans and put it in the palm of your hand and still have room for your dick.”
> 
> Through the process of using the skin for text messages I really appreciated the help of Pentapus (google slides) and empires (video), thank you guys!


End file.
